Bid to kill August elections fizzles

The push in the Idaho Legislature to abolish August elections was halted Wednesday morning, prompting Kootenai County’s clerk to say he will hold elections whenever Idaho voters require them.

“It’s our job to run the election,” Kootenai County Clerk Jim Brannon said. “We’ll run the election, whether it’s in August or November or March or May.”

House Bill 106 died in an Idaho Senate committee Wednesday. The Senate State Affairs Committee voted unanimously to hold the bill that would have abolished August elections. Holding bills essentially kills them.

Proponents of the legislation said August elections, which are usually reserved for school levies and bond issues, took valuable time away from county clerks, time that lawmakers said could be better spent shoring up election security.

But the education lobby pushed back Wednesday, testifying in force that the August elections are the last opportunities for school districts to plan their budgets before the school years begin, an option they say wouldn’t be available to voters in November, March or May.

While Brannon said he would carry out his duties whenever an election is required, he added that from his office’s perspective, he saw no advantages to the August election. The Kootenai County clerk looked back at the last August election his office oversaw — back in 2019, when voters resoundingly rejected a Lakeland Joint School District bond — and said locals, lobbyists and lawmakers alike should consider the costs.

“That election cost the taxpayers roughly $33,000 in election supplies,” Brannon said. “It cost about $8,300 for poll workers. And it cost taxpayers to the tune of $1,350 to your Coeur d’Alene Press to publish the legal advertising.”

But Brannon also pushed back on the notion that Kootenai County elections were threatened by security issues, saying the concerns lawmakers voiced with HB 106 are already being satisfied.

“I understand that some counties may have less staff or a less-aggressive clerk on some of these matters,” Brannon said. “But we are always securing our [voter] rolls. We are always updating our records. The better the records we have going into an election, the less likely we are to disenfranchise a legal voter or allow an illegal vote.”

Scott Maben, director of communications for the Coeur d’Alene School District, stood up for Wednesday’s vote in the Senate State Affairs Committee to hold HB 106.

"For some school districts, the August election date is the last chance to seek voter approval of their operating levy before the school year gets underway,” Maben told The Press. “It's simply too late to wait until November, months into a district's fiscal year, to know if you will have sufficient funding to finish the school year and maintain budgeted programs and workforce."

Maben also stressed that HB 106 was an attempt to circumvent an agreement between the Legislature and Idaho’s schools.

"School districts used to set their own election dates, but in 2008 our state agreed to consolidate those into four times of year, well-spaced apart: March, May, August and November,” Maben said. “The promise made then was to establish consistency and dependability in the election calendar, and to not further impede the ability of school districts to secure community support for critical funding not provided by the state.”